Jackson Lawlor Mr.

Glinski AP History 14 November 2011

Executive Incompetence Edmund Burke, an 18th century Irish statesman, once declared, All government is founded on compromise and barter. Unfortunately, Mr. Burke was long dead by the time Woodrow Wilson became president of the United States. (Wilson probably would not have listened to Burke anyways, Burke being Irish and Wilson being an Anglophile.) It would have benefited Wilson to heed the advice of Mr. Burke, because it was Wilsons ineptitude, stubbornness, and unwillingness to compromise which prevented the United States from joining the League of Nations. Wilsons first blunder was in selecting the diplomatic envoy to accompany him to Paris. Then, he wasted his energy on rallying the American people around the cause, when it could have been better spent in Washington. Finally, Wilson gave up the chance at having any part in the League of Nations when he ordered his fellow Democrats to vote against the bill. These events clearly demonstrate that through his incompetence, obstinacy, and absolute refusal to accommodate the viewpoints of others, Woodrow Wilson effectively killed the Treaty of Versailles in the senate. The first sign of Wilsons political ineptitude was in his decision to be accompanied by an envoy almost entirely comprised of Democrats on his trip to France. Though his trip included one Republican, he was not influential and was clearly a poor attempt at placating the Republicans without allowing them any say in the proceedings. Had Wilson been a student of history, he would have learned from his more politically adept predecessors, specifically Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln famously brought together a team of rivals for his cabinet, allowing him to appeal to multiple factions of the party and to receive multiple viewpoints on each issue.

Lincoln purposely surrounded himself with people who would disagree with him, in order to make more informed decisions. Wilson should have mimicked this approach, creating a politically diverse group of Republicans and Democrats to accompany him to Europe. The result would have been a treaty more likely to be ratified by the Senate. However, Wilsons cause was not lost the moment he picked his delegation. Rather, it was lost the moment he embarked on his 9,000 mile, 22 day speaking tour. Perhaps Wilsons tour was a valiant effort at drumming up popular support for the treaty, but this notion was misguided. Thirty-Seven speeches do not reach a particularly massive audience, and the speeches importance is diminished even further when one considers that this was not an issue to be voted upon by the people. Wilsons efforts would have been far less futile had he concentrated them on the senators: the men with the actual power to ratify the treaty. Wilsons tour left him physically unable to perform his duties as president as Senators raised legitimate concerns about the constitutionality of the treaty. Herbert Hoover wrote the

President a letter in October of 1919, urging upon [Wilson] the desirability of accepting the reservations. Hoover should have saved his energy because Wilson had suffered a stroke a month earlier due to the strenuous nature of his speaking tour. This shut him off from Hoovers voice of reason, and prevented him from addressing concerns and having dialogue on the ratification of the treaty. Wilson sidelined himself with his speaking tour, thus preventing any chance he could have to reason with the senate. Already not functioning mentally due to his stroke, Wilson made one final blunder in instructing his fellow Democrats not to vote for the revised treaty presented to the Senate by

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. In doing this, Wilsons actions bore striking resemblance to a disgruntled toddler who desires to eat an entire cake, but his told he may only have one piece; the toddler then refuses to eat any cake at all. Wilson wanted the unabridged treaty, was told he could not have it, and decided he would not have any treaty at all. One would expect a higher level of maturity from the President of the United States. Wilson would defend his actions, saying, Article X is nothing but the inevitable, logical center of the whole system of the Covenant of the League of Nations. In reality, Article X was a clear violation of the Constitution which explicitly gave the power to declare war to Congress, not to an international body. Article X was also not the center of the whole system, as Wilson put it. The center of the whole system was in the idea of an international forum where countries could peacefully discuss their grievances. This idea was completely unprecedented, and a League of Nations which was solely a forum for debate and mediation would have been a revolutionary success. Herbert Hoover echoed this sentiment, writing, I have the belief that the League once in motion it candevelop such measures as will make it effective. However, Wilson felt the need to hold out for the whole cake, and ended up getting none of it. Perhaps it was hubris that caused Wilson to form the treaty without input from other political parties. Perhaps it was his Messianic complex which caused him to believe he could rally sufficient public support to force the senate to ratify his version of the treaty. Perhaps it was the effect of the stroke that caused him to reject all compromise. Whatever the cause, the effect was that by Wilsons ineptitude alone, the Treaty of Versailles was not passed by the United States Senate. Nero was infamous for fiddling as Rome burned. Wilson was slightly less dramatic: giving futile speeches and making stubborn declarations as his treaty was killed.